Highly active natural antifungal materials such as strobilurin A, B and C as well as oudemansin A and B have a common structural feature of comprising a β-methoxyacrylate (MOA) framework, which has stimulated studies to develop methoxyimino ester or amide fungicide having the same framework.
Such methoxyimino esters or amides compounds have excellent antifungal activity at a low dosage rate, good penetration and translocation proportion, and a broad range of antifungal applicability. These characteristics solve the problems of the existing drugs such as low activity, a narrow antifungal range and short activity durability. However, the repetitive use thereof induces the appearance of new fungal strains resistant not only to said fungicides but also to related fungicides having a common structural feature.
For this reason, continuous efforts have been undertaken to develop novel fungicides. Such efforts have led to the development of new fungicides derived from strobilurin disclosed in, for example, International Patent Publication Nos. WO 96/06072, WO 96/33164, WO 98/56774 and WO 99/23066, German Patent Nos. 724,200 (1997) and 732,846 (1997), and Great Britain Patent No. 22,893 (1997). However, these compounds still suffer from the problem of a narrow antifungal spectrum or low activity against different fungi such as Phytophthora. 
Therefore, the present inventors have endeavored to develop a highly effective compound having stronger antifungal activity, a much broader range of antifungal applicability, a lower toxicity, and improved activity durability than existing fungicides, and developed a compound having excellent antifungal activity for protecting crops from fungal damages even at a low application rate.